Sales Meeting Tips, Part 1

Establishing a regular meeting is the best way for you to communicate with your staff. It allows everyone to hear the same message at the same time and within the same context. Properly conducted, your meeting will help you keep everyone on your team engaged, focused on the task at hand, and motivated to perform. Here are a few tips for putting together a productive meeting.

Who should attend?
Everyone. Obviously, those who have scorecard goals should be involved in your regular meetings. But anyone who comes in contact with the Customer impacts their experience and, therefore, the performance of the team.

Ideally, all team members meet together. While there may be topics that pertain to only one group, others may benefit from hearing the discussion. Tellers included in a discussion of average loan growth can gain valuable insight into how their job can impact that category.

How long should they last?
It depends. Some may prefer to have a dedicated meeting focused strictly on a review of performance or planning for the next week. In this case, try to keep meetings to no more than 45 minutes.

Others may want to incorporate a discussion of sales and service topics into a regularly scheduled operations meeting. In this scenario, the discussion may only last 10-15 minutes.

What do you talk about?
The key to a good meeting is planning for it ahead of time. Know what you want to accomplish going into the meeting and then organize your thoughts around that objective. There are three typical objectives when it comes to any kind of meeting.

• Inform – You want to share something with the team. For example, you want to inform the team about a new product or changes to an existing product.

• Discuss – You want to gather information from the team. For example, you wan the team to brainstorm strategies for achieving a particular goal.

• Direct – You want the team to engage in a specific set of actions. For example, you want to direct the team to begin using a new skill or process.

How do you get started?
It’s easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Schedule your first meeting. If you already have regular staff meetings, then decide how much time you’ll devote to sales and service related topics. If you haven’t had a meeting in a while, put one on the calendar right now. And then inform your team so they can be prepared for it.

2. Prepare the talking points for the first meeting. Take some time to write out a structure for your meeting. What is your objective? What points will you cover? What questions will you ask? What resources do you need?

3. Commit to a regular meeting schedule. Too many times, good ideas get off to a great start only to lose steam and disappear. Don’t let that happen to your meetings.

In my next post, I’ll share some more tips for getting the most out of your team meetings.